Something special this week! And one of the coolest artworks I’ve bought in a while.

I'm not a big Charizard fan. Never really was.

He's iconic, sure. And don’t get me wrong, I don’t dislike Charizard at all, he just never made it onto any of my favourites lists.

And yet. There's a Charizard about to hang on my wall.

Not a card, but a magazine from 2001.

A while back I saw a vintage seller on Instagram (nostalgia_provider_sales). Loads of cool old Pokémon stuff. And about three or four of these magazines.

They looked fun. So I went digging.

I found out that there are 21 regular issues in total (plus a summer special). Some with really cool cover art. The ones this seller had listed didn't have the covers I liked most.

So I checked eBay, but prices and availability were all over the place.
To be clear: these magazines originally came with promo cards or other extras inside. I'm only talking about copies without them here.

Less popular issues go for around €40–60. But the standout covers I actually wanted? Those easily hit €100+. Some issues aren't listed at all, or there are just a handful of copies up for a crazy price. Which makes solid price data pretty hard to find.

At those prices, I wasn't ready to pull the trigger on something I had just discovered, so I kinda forgot about it.

Until one popped up on Vinted last week. And it was an issue with a cover I really like: the Charizard. Listed at €70.

I offered €60 and the deal was done.

In total I paid around €68 including shipping and the Vinted fees
(or, as Vinted likes to call it, “buyer protection”).

The cover art is the main reason why I bought this magazine.

It's illustrated by Aya Kusube, and it turns out she also drew the card on the back of the magazine: Lance's Charizard from the VS set.

I think the artwork is really dope. The black background behind the Charizard with the pink flames surrounding it, all on a white magazine, chef’s kiss.

Also, the yellow border makes it look like Charizard is breaking out of a card. I’m a real sucker for the old art styles of Pokémon.

So even though I can’t read a word of Japanese, the artwork convinced me to buy it.

I’m going to look for a good picture frame with the right dimensions to display it on my wall or somewhere else in my house!

It’s the Pokémon Card Trainers Magazine. An official Japanese magazine all about the Pokémon card game, made mainly for players, with some fun extras on the side.

As I said, 21 issues (plus the summer special) were released between 1999 and 2003. If you were a member of the Pokémon Card Fan Club, you got it in the mail. Mine is Vol. 13, from November 2001, published by The Pokémon Company.

Inside you would find, for example:

And every issue came with bonus items as well, like:

This Charizard Vol. 13 used to come with two promo cards:

My second-hand copy didn’t have these cards inside anymore, which is why it was “only” 60 euros of course.

Sealed copies, or even unsealed copies that still include the promo cards, are in a whole different price category.

But the bonus booklet is still in there!

It’s a checklist of the VS set. I absolutely love this set, but at the moment I'm already working on enough sets. Besides, some of the cards within the VS set are really expensive nowadays.

Something I didn’t know when I bought this magazine is that Vol. 13 is kind of special.

It's the last issue with the original design, layout and distribution.

Vol. 1–13 were sent to members, but you could also buy them in stores. From Vol. 14 onwards the magazine got a full redesign and became members-only.

As you can see, the artwork changed a lot from Vol. 14.

Also, the content inside changed a bit. It became even more focused on players of the card game, and the promo cards that came with it changed as well. They now matched the cover art, and every issue came with three cards.

Want to flip through these magazines yourself? Someone on Elite Fourum archived PDFs of the magazines, so check those out if you’re interested.

That’s it for this week!

If you enjoyed this issue and want to support me, share it with a friend! If you want to read more about retro collectibles, check out all my other issues online.

Talk to you next week!